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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26604085">Touch Attempt</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern'>CravenWyvern</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>DS Extras [80]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Don't Starve (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Complicated Relationships, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, headcanons galore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:08:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,255</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26604085</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's kinda hard figuring out what this is, this <i>bond</i> between them, but that's okay.</p><p>It'll work out in the end.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Maxwell/Wilson (Don't Starve)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>DS Extras [80]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/688443</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Touch Attempt</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maxwell Carter was just so thin.</p><p>And bony, Wilson knew, so damn bony. It was a wonder that the carnivorous beasts of the Constant took one look at their past creator and thought him viable as a worthy meal! </p><p>There were a few good theories on the <i>why</i> of it; sitting upon the Throne seemed like the most likely contender, or perhaps the intense give and take system of interacting so closely with the shadows and Them, but that didn't change the fact that the old former Nightmare King could look so unbearably <i>ghastly.</i></p><p>It had been worse, the time right after being dethroned. Wilson vaguely recalled the near ghoulish, maybe even vampiric nature of the old man, how he had seemed so deathly pale, ragged and wispy, an almost ethereal nature to how he moved; almost as if the very concept of living was foreign to him. This changed over time, of course, but sometimes these half memories of how inhuman Maxwell had once seemed, even after being torn from the Throne and set out into the wild without any proper guide or aid, they rose back up in Wilsons drifting thoughts at the most random of times.</p><p>Like now, he thought vaguely, letting his mind twist and wander on the train of thought that it clouded up into, and his hands, dull claws, they wandered about in much the same fashion.</p><p>Now, instead of that ghastly pale, almost translucent or vaguely lavender blackened hue that signified shadow presence, it was skin with a more hinted blush of color that his eyes roamed over. Still pale, sickly almost, but days, months, years spent working under even the Constants sun has brought a bit more life into the cells and systems that kept the old magician alive in the first place; even death and revival didn't seem to take this change away or revert into some ghastly hollow mockery.</p><p>Every once in awhile Wilson would meet up with the old man through the floral posterns magics and shenanigans, and sometimes Maxwell seemed to be regressed, frailer in mind and body, and the nightmares and night terrors he would not speak of to Wilson graced him far more often then, whatever life he had lived before the portals seeking magics had found him haunting and sticking around far longer than was welcome.</p><p>Still, change occurred slow and steady and inevitable, in a way that Wilson himself found very little words to put to.</p><p>Pale skin, thin and stretched across the structure of the old man's bones, pointy and jutting and looking as if a starving man made to keep setting one foot after another for no other reason than pure amusing torture, and yet there was that faint color, faintest hint of health and life that propagated in a way that made Wilsons mind feel ever so slightly lighter.</p><p>His hands trailed, palms to those so thin, corpse like stretches of ribs and sternum and collarbone, dull claws dipping to divots or rolling over the slightest raise of possible fat deposit or hint of thicker flesh, and the shiver, the slightest of exhaled sighs that he got out of it was relieving to hear.</p><p>The roll of that bony chest, taking in a deep inhale of air, letting him feel bone and muscle and skin stretch to accommodate, the expanse of pale flushed skin that looked more alive than bleach bones scattered to the Constants shores, and Wilson only briefly glanced up, met eye contact with the older man and stilled his wandering hands for a few moments.</p><p>And then he looked away, a mild flutter of embarrassment at the incidental intimacy, and out of the corner of his eye he can see Maxwell do much the same; those dark eyes closed, another shallow sigh, and those brittle hands rose up to clasp with his own, still his wandering movements. </p><p>Laying on his partner like this, chin to his chest and just relaxed atop him, probably wasn't as comfortable as he first thought it would've been. The old man breathed with the slightest of rattles, a rasp when he breathed deep and the wheeze that came after, and if he let his eyes drift Wilson could see some of the clues as to why that was.</p><p>Those wrinkled hands prevented him from finding the faintest of scars, or the stains of shadow influence, or, perhaps more prevalent right about now, the lightest indents of too pale skin that indicated constriction, whether by wrappings or clothing it did not matter. He did not talk to Maxwell about these things, because Maxwell did not wish it to be a subject matter between them; Wilson was allowed his own secrets, as obvious as they could get sometimes, and he did not push the former Nightmare King for answers if they weren't already freely given.</p><p>At least, not to this sort of thing. Questions of the Constant and Them were free game; conversation of a long past life or personal choices were touchy and required a bit more forethought when talked about between each other. Slights were getting less and less common, but even by accident they still hurt; Wilson still felt rubbed the wrong way by that one time Maxwell started rambling some nonsense on holiday tradition and familial gatherings, some sort of attempt at poking fun at Wilson and his past that had ended with the both of them in foul moods. That argument hadn't gotten settled until days later. </p><p>His claws were now entangled loosely with the old mans long fragile feeling fingers, wrinkled and frazzled and tipped ever so slightly sharp, the dark shadow hint of nightmare fuel use and dependence, and in the faint low light of the lantern in their shared tent Wilson turned his eyes to those hands, gently turning them, examining them in an idle, slow way. </p><p>The faintest hint of calluses were forming to the pads of those fingers, darkened and then hardened at the tips into sharp tipped talons, the soft thin skin wrinkled and bulged by shadowy veins, and his own claws almost looked out of place, gently dragging over the far softer palms. </p><p>A long while back Wes had done a bit of "palm reading" with those who had been interested. Obviously the lines on one's hands had nothing to do with futures or fortune telling, were there for scientific reasons that connected with human biology and skeletal, muscle structure, but the children had been very interested, a few of the others amused, and in the end Wilson decided to humor the mime and see if anything came of it.</p><p>Nothing but nonsense, as was usual as Wes signed out his findings from the dark scrawls and grey dips of Wilson's less than human skin and claws, only a mild, hesitant pause to trace over the familiar scar across his palm, but it had given him an appreciation for what a soft touch it could be, to lay one's hands to another's and trace their life lines. </p><p>Wes had been understanding at his reaction to the somewhat intimate contact, and even went so far as to give him a firm hug in the end, a last cryptic message or two before Wilson went on his way and put such superstition back behind him once more.</p><p>Now, however, Wilson was the one tracing these lines with his claws, and it was Maxwell's open palms that allowed him to do so.</p><p>His claws were dull, quietly trailing the wrinkled softened skin held in his hands, the slightest twitches as those fingers half curled at his touch, but even where lines went crooked or disconnected, so dissimilar to even Wilsons own palms, his claws still followed them to their near ends. The scars found after, lower and of a past Maxwell has never deemed important enough for Wilson to know besides through vague mentions and old half recalled memories shared by the campfire deep at midnight, these he let his claws only briefly brush over, the stark outline of wrist bone and tendons, darker shadow influenced veins, old pains that still haunted the former Nightmare King, no matter what has changed or why.</p><p>When he finally glanced back up he could see the discomfort on the older mans face, eyes still closed and willing to let Wilson do as he wished and yet brow furrowed, face drawn into an almost snarl, grimace of phantom pain, physical and mental, emotional.</p><p>It was enough for him to release his partners hands, something in his chest twisting at that as he looked away.</p><p>He knew better, just as Maxwell did, and yet they both seemed to end up crossing lines all the time.</p><p>The lines on one's hands never matched another's, Wes had once signed to him; where Wilson had found comfort at the touch, Maxwell had grown uncomfortable. </p><p>He murmured a low apology, not quite words but close enough in this silence they shared between them, and even debated the thought of moving, shifting to the side and to just let it go, sleep and not bring it up ever again. He knew Maxwell well enough to know he'd rather forget than forgive, and then stew and boil on the consequences after by his lonesome.</p><p>Those hands came back up in answer, wrapped about his own and tangled for a brief moment with his claws, and Maxwell looked up at him with tired, vaguely distant eyes, the pitch black unbroken by everything that Wilson knew was hiding, suffocating down there. Thumbs rubbed briefly across his knuckles, a slight squeeze, and the old Nightmare King shut his eyes and murmured his own dismissal of the apology, quiet and melancholic, just content to hold his hands and nothing more.</p><p>It made Wilson have to take a breath, steady himself, slow down in whatever train rush of thoughts in his head came up from it all. He worried himself too much, yet at the same time his worries were so deeply valid; some of those scars, even the few he could see curling up those bone thin arms, were still healing.</p><p>Maxwell was being very quiet tonight, tired, and no matter the calm it set him on the vaguest of edges, the smallest blips of red flag that only half raised, and yet it made him so, so-</p><p>...he didn't really know. These things, these feelings, what he had with the former Nightmare King, with <i>Maxwell</i>, it felt so delicate sometimes. As if it would shatter if he said the wrong thing, did the wrong thing, <i>acted</i> a certain way, and then the shards would be everywhere, poking him and the old man straight through and neither would know what to do then.</p><p>Other times, it was as if a leech had strapped on to his back and just wouldn't leave, no matter how much he yelled or cursed or tried to hurt it. </p><p>But a leech was a simple creature, it did not deserve such reaction, such abuse. Men, humans, they could be so different. </p><p>Then again, no human, no matter how foul, deserved to suffer.</p><p>...right?</p><p> </p><p>Wilson knew his answer to that, no matter what some of the others would say, Wigfrids unforgiving judgements and Willows justified anger, but sometimes…</p><p>Sometimes he wondered what Maxwell believed of it.</p><p>Judging from the old man's past actions, from the Throne and then the right after, the moments before this one, Wilson supposed it wouldn't be very positive.</p><p>Most times he'd let himself believe he could change that. Others, he found himself fighting to hold to his own moral decisions and not be dragged under.</p><p>Sometimes being around so many different people with so many different thoughts and opinions made life harder than Wilson thought it was supposed to be. He had lived alone for so long for a reason, after all.</p><p>Though, surviving in the Constant on his lonesome did not quite compare to having the company. Even when it had only been Maxwell, wispy and frail and weak after the Throne, ethereal and other in so many ways and yet so baseline <i>human</i> that it sometimes made Wilsons head hurt, having someone around helped a bit.</p><p>Maybe it was because they were all outcasts, Wilson vaguely wondered. Not one of the others he could compare to someone he's known in his life before the Constant, as faded and forgotten as those memories have become, and he was pretty sure he has never met any assortment of people as odd or even mentally unhinged as the folks he now lived with.</p><p>Willow could be such a prime example, her humor and aggression so bound together to almost make her seem sadistic but offset by just how genuinely caring she could be. For all her self proclaimed hatred of Maxwell, Wilson has seen them talk, has seen them work together, and, from what she's shared with him, they've survived in one plane of the Constant or another before with just each other for support. He found it a bit hard to believe, but the fact was that Willow did somewhat <i>care</i> for the old man.</p><p>Just like so many of the others. Even Wigfrid, with her more "accidental" murderous tendencies that caused Wilson so many damn headaches, wasted effigies and touchstones and telltale hearts, has shown some sort of sympathy in one given situation or another. Maxwell has made some very unfair, somewhat crude comments about her before, which usually got him hurt afterwards, the bastard that he could be sometimes, but Wilson has seen them work together, hunt down and slaughter beasts and monsters and giants, and neither seemed to notice but both never thought twice in saving the other from a death blow.</p><p>It felt awkward, knowing something about Maxwell that the old man didn't seem to want to acknowledge. Wilson knew he himself was probably just a wide open book to him, every detail known and remembered from the time on the Throne, and yet it felt as if Maxwell never grew tired of him.</p><p>Foul mood or mean comments or mental degradation lapsing into physical violence between each other, none of what Wilson was or did seemed to deter the old Nightmare King. </p><p>A bit discomforting, when sometimes Wilson wished that Maxwell wanted <i>nothing</i> to do with him.</p><p>Sighing quietly, feeling that bony chest underneath him breath deep and copy him a few seconds after, Wilson let his claws softly brush the hands in his before untangling them. It made those dark, dull eyes squint at him, that neutral frown on Maxwell's face unmoving and masking, but Wilson just sat himself up, adjusted as to be comfortable leaning over the old man.</p><p>He could vaguely see a glimmer of questioning there, but when Maxwell tried to sit up as well Wilson just lay his claws against his chest, lightly pushed him back down with a shake of his head, a low negating murmur.</p><p>He wasn't interested in getting up to anything tonight. His thoughts were too serious, too distracted, and thinking of this, of what lay between them in unspoken words, how neither of them just <i>talked</i> about it, it wouldn't be a good time for anything else.</p><p>The old man seemed to get the idea, laid back out with a rattling deep sigh, a flash of discomfort at the touch that melted as Wilson let his dull claws trail to those bony stark ribs.</p><p>He knew he could bring it up, could speak up and give it words and meaning. But Wilson also knew Maxwell well enough, and doing so, making it so blunt and slapping a label, or some conforming box to it, might just unnerve the both of them. </p><p>The Constant didn't allow for permanency, after all. People get seperated, new bonds are formed and then broken, burned, wasted away. Wilson has lived countless lifetimes in this place, and he has lived them with nearly every single other survivor at least once. </p><p>He suspected, as uncommon as it may be, that Maxwell has done the same. </p><p>Unlike all of those, however, Wilson has always found the old King to be drawn back to him, an invisible gravitational pull that Wilson sometimes found himself wishing to be destroyed. It was that leech he could just never get rid of, and now they both were stuck through with glass shards that bound them together in some awful, complicated way he couldn't put a name to. </p><p>He didn't let his hands trail lower than those bony hips, so sharp and stark and mildly nauseating with just how bad malnutrition has taken its toll on the old man, and while there was more life in this skin than the beginning it still didn't change the fact that Maxwell always looked like a living, breathing corpse. The ethereal, almost eldritch and uncanny valley nature of him has long worn off, and all that was left was this thin, worn down skeletal body before him, housing a man who just wouldn't believe himself to be free.</p><p>The hollow belly under his palms shivered, but he just spread his claws, let his touch slowly trail back upwards, feel every curve and detail and such thin skin barely protecting the flesh and organs and bone underneath.</p><p>Getting weight on him was near impossible, whether that be due to natural metabolism or shadow side effects or perhaps even just his old age, though if one asked Maxwell he'd never admit openly that the years were catching up to him. That sometimes made Wilson laugh, the refusal to admit that the aches and pains may be hidden arthritis, that maybe there were some bowel movements that Maxwell strictly did not ever mention no matter how awkward it could get, that oftentimes even his usually sharp mind would get forgetful, mix up certain word for another and ask Wilson to hand over a blanket instead of the axe that he had fully believed himself to be asking for.</p><p>Blanket and axe didn't even rhyme, and Wilson had laughed and laughed at the mistake, the old man irritated and eventually pouting, not willing to admit he had mixed up his own words.</p><p>Perhaps it had not been kind, to laugh at such a thing. Eventually old age will get to Wilson too, he knew, though the Constant will always roll him back to shape once he died.</p><p>Unfortunately for Maxwell, he never came back younger.</p><p>It made Wilson wonder, as his hands drifted and mapped out his partners bony body, tracing faint old scars here or there, careful with any bruising that came from the roughness of wilderness survival, and from the little glimpses and slips the old man offered he wondered what youth had once looked like upon him.</p><p>Had he more weight, before this place? Was he always stick thin, did his voice always hint to a rasp, did the cough from tobacco smoke grace him in his younger years? Did his ribs always stick out, the veins of his wrists and arms so clear and plain, was his throat always so soft and sallow, face set with such sharp cheekbones and heavy pulling wrinkles, eyes always so sunken in and deeply tired, exhausted? </p><p>Did he always have those scars on him, physical and mental, emotional, or were those new additions caused by the shadows, by the Constant? </p><p>It was an interesting train of thought, one he knew better to not poke and pry answers about, and Maxwell always seemed appreciative of the allowed privacy. Whenever he did speak of such things - of Charlie, of a vague childhood memory, of glasses or stage lights or hot desert air and the sound of screeching train metal against metal - it was with a quiet air that was spoken only to Wilson, only shared to him in brief remarks. </p><p>These bits and pieces of Knowledge were always tantalizing in their own way, and Wilson would take them to heart, that they were allowed to him when Maxwell spoke to no other of such things. Charlie's name was well known by now as the new Queen, but Wilson was one of the few to know who she was, who she had once been to the old Nightmare King.</p><p>Her sister shared similar stories, tinted by the lens of family, and yet Maxwell spoke always with a solemn reverence, admiration and affection laced in his voice.</p><p>It was obvious by now that the Queen did not care for the past, especially with how Winona had spoken of how she had gotten here. What Maxwell still cradled within him for her would be unanswered, and Wilson knew the old man knew that very well.</p><p>Didn't mean he didn't humor him, didn't sit and listen to his quiet reminiscing, didn't offer up much but support and vague questions and allow his partner to speak almost lovingly of someone who cared not for him any longer.</p><p>It didn't hurt Wilson, not exactly, not in the way he supposed it usually would, but when Maxwell would eventually quiet, curl in on himself and shut down, that was when he felt more than just plain old sympathy.</p><p>He cared too much, Wilson was pretty sure, and yet even a leech needed someone to be there for it.</p><p>Wasn't nice to think of the old Nightmare King like that, yet oftentimes Maxwell seemed more like one of the hungry shadows than any mortal human.</p><p> </p><p>...he must have looked rather funny, with glasses. </p><p>Wilson led his hands to lay upon his partners shoulders, bony and brittle, the hard bone underneath feeling so fragile under his palms, and at some point Maxwell had raised his own hands, had guided them to just holding a light grasp about his own hips and keeping them there. He could see his every wheezing breath, the strain that his lungs had due to the constriction of his chest in the daylight hours now a chronic side effect, and after brief moment of just watching, letting his eyes trail the shadows and pale flush of skin and bone that lay before, underneath him, Wilson trailed one hand down.</p><p>His palm settled atop where that old heart was, beating quick and uneven and yet still ticking along, and he wondered if it had beaten stronger, steadier back when Maxwell had been young.</p><p>He wondered if it would ever do so again, and already severely doubted it, as sad as that may seem.</p><p>Maxwell breathed in deep, and his shadow infused talons, thumbs rubbed small circles atop the skin of his hips, a hum of an exhale escaping him, possibly in affection from how softly Wilson was being looked at, those dark, pitch black eyes half open and dulled down, not quite so hard or glared as usual.</p><p>He's seen that look a lot, Wilson knew, and yet he also was familiar enough to know it wasn't something anyone else has ever given him. If he had been younger, still caught up in faint, confused ideas of what romance was and wondering why he found no interest in it whatsoever, why he felt differently, he'd have interpreted the flutter in his chest for something wholly wrong.</p><p>Now, however, Wilson just smiled, a soft, slight one, a bit saddened maybe. No one has ever looked at him with such raw fondness before, and he didn't think anyone else ever would.</p><p>He knew he'd never end up giving it in turn, not really, but that didn't stop him from leaning down, allowed his forehead to lay against his partners, look into his pitch black, empty eyes and watch that hidden, suffocating sliver underneath all that hopeless bitterness brighten ever so slightly.</p><p>Maxwell hummed again, and if his rattling lungs weren't so damaged from tobacco smoke and constricting clothing Wilson was sure the man would absolutely be <i>purring</i>. Those shadowy fragile hands rose up, lightly itched across his back and settled to his shoulders, gripped him with a firmness that spoke of a vulnerability that the old man was trying very, very hard to allow right now, and Wilson let his eyes close, feeling the faint patter of his partner's heartbeat against his palm, feeling him underneath him and holding, wishing Wilson to be close, <i>wanting</i> him to be.</p><p>For all the hurdles that this was, that living in the Constant has thrown at him, Wilson vaguely realized he felt a bit appreciative for it. He'd have never known otherwise, locked up in his house far from human contact, and while that maybe might not have been too bad of an end his very nature was thrilled at having been able to experience something no one else like him would ever get to again. This place was a hell of its own and Maxwell used to be the guardian, and now Wilson was here with feelings he'd never thought he'd ever feel for another, in a place no one could ever dream of in the other reality. </p><p>He was here, he was alive, and so was Maxwell, so was everyone else he has come to know and care for in so many different ways. </p><p>Wilson was here, he thought to himself, and his smile might have spread a bit bigger as his partner wrapped his arms about him in a more firm, confident hug, an assurance the both of them shared between each other in the give and take of complexities that they had created together.</p><p>He was here, and he felt happy.</p>
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